Welcome

Welcome to my little website. When I was a newly ordained priest, my first pastor gave me a full page in the parish bulletin to fill each week. He told me he did not care what I wrote about as long as I filled the page. He explained that only 1/3 of the parish would hear me preach on any given Sunday because I celebrated two out of six parish Masses but every parishioner would read the bulletin so this was a way that I could reachout to them and they could get to know me better. After four years in the parish, I was transferred to another parish and as I was leaving many people asked me to send them my weekly bulletin column by e-mail and thus my internet ministry was born.

When I was trying to decide what to write about in my weekly bulletin article, I came across a quote from Archbishop Fulton Sheen that went something like "There are not a hundred people in the world who hate the Catholic Church for what we teach but there are thousands who hate the Catholic Church for what they think we teach." With that quote in mind, I began to choose oen topic a month to explain more indepth the Church's teaching on those issues. From those mustardseeds has blossomed this website filled with infomation about the Catholic faith that I find interesting and informative. I invite you to take your time and explore the different teachings and reflections. I hope above all that these things will ultimately lead you closer to God.

Thank you and God bless, Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius

Published Works 4 Sale

Personal Penance ServicesThis book is designed for Catholics who wish to be better prepared to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The book contains Scripture passages to meditate on and examinations of consciences to help prepare one to better confess his or her sins.

I have a three step plan for world peace. Step one of my plan is for everyone to read Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham’s book called The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning. In this book Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham provide a sort of spiritual history of Alcoholics Anonymous and by doing so elicit some from the experiences of those participating in Alcoholics Anonymous some powerful and literally life changing spiritual insights. The most important being the power of stories.

O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all you necessities. Call her to your assistance, for such is the divine Will that she should help in every kind of necessity. --Saint Basil the Great. We have another great image of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Ann Ball’s book: The Other Faces Of Mary: Stories, Devotions and Pictures of the Holy Virgin around the World. This next image of the Blessed Virgin Mary comes from India and is called Our Lady of Velankanni (Our Lady of Good health).

“The devotions we practice in honor of the glorious Virgin Mary, however trifling they may be, are very pleasing to Her Divine Son, and He rewards them with eternal glory.” - Saint Teresa of Avila. Our next image of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a very strange image. It is called the “Virgin with Three Hands”. Remember that much of the information about these images of Blessed Virgin Mary can be found in Ann Ball’s book: The Other Faces Of Mary: Stories, Devotions and Pictures of the Holy Virgin around the World.

St. John Vianney once wrote: “Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.” A true mother loves all her children and while the relationship between mother and child may change over the years the love that a good mother has never diminishes. This made most evident in our next image of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Ann Ball’s book: The Other Faces Of Mary: Stories, Devotions and Pictures of the Holy Virgin around the World. This image has been entitled: Our Lady of Montligeon and in its original form it was a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary lifting souls out of the fires of purgatory and placing them into the heavens.

“From Mary we learn to surrender to God's Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God!” - Saint John Paul II.